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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29514426">Tears For the Wolf</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TBs_LMC/pseuds/TheMoments'>TheMoments (TBs_LMC)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age: Inquisition</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, Dalish Lore, Dread Wolf, Emerald Graves (Dragon Age), Established Relationship, Identity Reveal, Inquisitor Lavellan Is Very Smart, M/M, Men Crying, Research, Solas is Fen'Harel (Dragon Age), Sweet Cole, Sweet Dorian Pavus, elven ruins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 03:07:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,445</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29514426</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TBs_LMC/pseuds/TheMoments</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Inquisitor Lavellan has always known who Solas really is.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Male Lavellan &amp; Solas (Dragon Age), Male Lavellan/Dorian Pavus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Tears For the Wolf</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a complete, unabashed AU after a certain point in gameplay. For this story, Inquisitor Lavellan is a Dalish hunter named Ghilani who favors the bow and spent most of his time on his own in the wild forests filled with elven ruins. He is romantically involved with Dorian but is on epic friendmance terms with Solas.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>TEARS FOR THE WOLF</strong>
</p>
<hr/><p>Tears streamed down his face as he stood in the midst of trees and elfroot, grass and plants and wildlife whose spirits embraced him, welcomed him, sang in his heart as they accepted him home. Home to this ancient elvhen forest where for more than sixty years before Fate stepped in he had been nearly solitary in his communion with the plants and animals that abided here. Not quite middle-aged in the lifespan of his people, but feeling far older with every dragon slain, every secret revealed, every mystery uncovered, every betrayal stabbing him through the heart.</p><p>Solas and Cole remained back, allowing him a moment, knowing that the entire clan Lavellan, used to roaming these woods, had been slaughtered. That the Inquisition forces had been too late. That the Inquisitor had been given no time to grieve, as was the case for so many in Thedas who had lost families, entire villages, everything they owned and were. He should be no different, but they called him friend and so their hearts ached just that much deeper.</p><p>He’d found the remains of some of his clan, those of their belongings not looted. Though his parents had died many years previously, and though he’d been more a loner than anything, the Inquisitor had still had lifelong friends among the Lavellan. Friends he had abandoned, without realizing it, to their demise, the day he’d left for Divine Justinia’s conclave.</p><p>But this Dalish before them who no longer had a clan of his own save for the Inquisition, had never once faltered or shirked what needed done, nor made any noises that he hoped for time to himself for any reason. Some nights were spent with friends, some solely with Dorian, and the Inquisitor seemed able to subsist on these relationships even moreso than from sleep. All had marveled that from the moment Cassandra had held him in chains in the aftermath of the Temple of the Sacred Ashes, the Inquisitor had been stalwart and true both to himself and to what it seemed now the Maker had ordained for him. Though he showed emotion quite plainly upon his countenance, however, he had never shed a tear in front of a single soul.</p><p>Until now.</p><p>Only Dorian approached him. The others wandered away, though Cole could feel the turmoil and Solas as well. There was great sorrow; perhaps his murdered clan’s spirits had caught up to his heart, a suggestion made by Cole. Whatever the case, they kept their distance to allow the one the Inquisitor had given his entire heart and soul to, to lead him from the sadness.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” came Dorian’s soothing voice. He placed a hand on the Inquisitor’s arm. “I had no idea this place was so special to you.” He half-shrugged. “You’ve never really spoken of your life before the disaster at the conclave.”</p><p>Tears continued to fall as the elf cried openly and freely before his lover, allowing everything inside to leave slowly at last. “I had not realized how much I missed them all until I came through here while we were chasing after Corypheus.” He smiled in spite of it all as he walked to a tree and laid his unmarked hand palm-flat upon its smooth bark. “When I left this forest that day, I believed I might be gone for perhaps several days, as warned by our Keeper.” He swallowed hard, fingers caressing the tree trunk. “I was approached by another of my clan, Din’Faleyn, we just called him Din. His lath’ha was laboring and he didn’t want to be away if she birthed.”</p><p>His breath caught. Dorian finished the story for him. “So you went in Din’s place.”</p><p>The Inquisitor nodded, looked into the shining grey eyes he’d come to love so very much in their short time together. Felt the tears slowing. Dorian always healed him, whether through teasing and laughter or through a touch or kiss at just the right moment, as if he instinctively knew which button to push and when.</p><p>“I believed, in the aftermath of discovering the mark on my hand and agreeing to be named Inquisitor, that there was a higher reason Din had asked me, of all people, to attend as a spy for my clan. You see, I am not a trained infiltrator and I never was. These were not the kinds of things I did for Clan Lavellan. I have spent nearly my entire life as a humble hunter and, more privately, a researcher. My bow was my closest friend and the animals and plants and the very earth beneath my feet were my family even moreso than the clan.”</p><p>“It’s so strange how different we are,” Dorian commented, “and yet I would follow you – and indeed, have – to the ends of the known world and back regardless whether it was among the tallest spires of civilization or lost in the deepest pits of dwarven lyrium mines.”</p><p>The Inquisitor smiled. “I know, and I fear that as much as I love you, I will always be torn between doing what’s right and –” He took a deep, shaky breath. Dorian began to feel anxiety make his heart pound in his chest. Something was wrong. <em>Terribly</em> wrong. Some kind of…he didn’t know…instinct? He <em>felt</em> it, like the Fade pouring off the Inquisitor in waves even though he wasn’t a mage.</p><p>Voice now stronger and steadier, the Inquisitor continued. “Din and I shared a short history of friendship from the days before he bonded with his lath’ha, Radel.”</p><p>He sniffled, took a few steps away, let his hand slide from the tree and catch Dorian’s as he filled his lungs once more with air. The human always knew when and how and what he needed and this moment was no different as their fingers intertwined. Dorian kept his body from shaking only because of his magic. You didn’t need to be Cole or Solas to feel a big, huge, looming BUT just waiting to crush them all. What was going on?</p><p>“I have had three different thoughts, each equally certain in their own right, for why the whole closing-fade-rift-mark thing happened, actually.” The Inquisitor dried his cheeks with one hand as he continued. “First, imagine what would have befallen Din had he attended. He would have either been killed or marked and if marked, who knows if he would ever have had the chance to see his child birthed, to be a father.” He shook his head. “I cannot imagine losing the love of my life and our child while doing what I do, them being so far away. It would have devastated him.”</p><p>He allowed those words the moment of respect they deserved but as was his way, Dorian tried to lighten the mood with a bit of tease in his voice. “And the second reason?”</p><p>The Inquisitor shrugged. “Perhaps the Maker or Andraste, if they truly exist – or whoever it is in charge of us all – really did send me. Cassandra once asked me how I know what to do when presented with challenging decisions. When I told her I just followed my conscience, my own inner guidance, she remarked that she wished she heard hers as clearly.” He tilted his head thoughtfully. “Maybe that intuition is actually whoever brought me to this place speaking to me somehow, whether my own soul or some higher power.”</p><p>A small smile turned the corners of Dorian’s mouth upward. “And the third thought you had about why you were sent here with a glowing green blob in the palm of your hand?”</p><p>Squeezing his hand, The Inquisitor winked. “You, of course. How else would we ever have met, I wonder? I would never have had reason to leave my forest and you, the son of a Tevinter Imperium magister wandering the south of Thedas to escape being ‘corrected’…” The Inquisitor’s voice trailed off in an unspoken response to the true horror Dorian had so narrowly avoided. “You,” he continued softly, squeezing his beloved’s hand, “would probably never have come through the Dales and even if you had I would have avoided encountering you as I did all who were not of the people.”</p><p>Dorian’s face fell. His father’s original intent for him and his own birthright in House Pavus were painful facts that neither of them could forget, for tongues wagged no matter where they spent their time, save perhaps in Skyhold. And yet even there, with all the allies and dignitaries ever-present, and the Inquisitor’s own quarters just off the main hall, it had often been difficult to maintain any sort of privacy and silence their detractors.</p><p>The two had come to terms with the oddity that was their relationship, and though they didn’t flaunt it openly in public, they didn’t hide the special looks and adoring smiles and surreptitious touches and joyful exchanges should they encounter one another outside of the Inquisitor’s rooms. A Dalish Inquisitor was a scandal. A Dalish Inquisitor in love with the son of a Tevinter magister was very nearly the end of the civilized world.</p><p>Especially in Orlais.</p><p>“I can’t sleep most nights thinking of the fact that the one I have fallen for so completely loves me in spite of my heritage. I keep thinking there’s something I should be doing to apologize for what Tevinter did to elves, every time I look into your eyes.” Dorian turned away but the Inquisitor held fast his hand.</p><p>“Yet here we are, loving each other more than either of us have a right to. Equals in every way.”</p><p>“Well, not really,” Dorian groused good-naturedly, determinedly pushing the soppy moment aside. “You’re kind of my boss in this whole Corypheus mess.”</p><p>“Yes, but no, and you know it.”</p><p>Dorian gave him a fast kiss on the cheek and whispered into his ear, “You are in bed.”</p><p>The Inquisitor blushed a little but otherwise didn’t react. He’d become good at the whole stoic elf thing while in public mostly, Dorian figured, because of imitating Solas.</p><p>“I’ve come to realize that I was right with the second reason,” the Inquisitor stated, as though Dorian hadn’t interrupted his original line of thought. “I do believe a higher power sent me, both for the first and third reasons and for a whole host more that you and I may never know.” He took a deep breath and turned toward a copse. “Now more than ever,” he added, and squeezed Dorian’s hand so hard he thought sure the elf would soon break bones.</p><p>Dorian’s breath hitched as Cole and Solas chose that moment to reappear. Something was happening. And whatever it was, it was going down <em>now.</em> Solas’s eyes were glittering and seemed to be boring holes into the Inquisitor’s skull. Dorian felt his heart seize in his chest as he looked between them. They were fast friends who loved each other dearly. No one knew this better than Dorian, who had talked often and at length with the Inquisitor about the bald apostate elf mage. Yet the look on Solas’s face right now was very nearly menacing. What was going <em>on</em>?</p><p>“One of which, Dorian, is the fact that I am up front about who I am, always. You know me, know how I am. Everyone who risks their lives to explore and fight at my side knows me. Though I have not often volunteered information about myself prior to the Inquisition or with regards to my thoughts, opinions and feelings on a matter, I am an open book. If a question is posed, I respond in all truth. I hide nothing. But the same cannot be said of one we have trusted most.” Dorian saw The Inquisitor’s Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed once, eyes never leaving Solas. “Isn’t that right, Dread Wolf?”</p><p>Solas froze. Turned his gaze upon the Inquisitor. The corners of his mouth turned up in a smile. “And your ability to surprise me not only continues but increases exponentially, Inquisitor.”</p><p>Dorian’s sharp intake of breath matched Cole’s.</p><p>The Inquisitor reached into one of the many pockets of his pants and pulled out a small, folded piece of paper as Solas approached. Cole lurked behind the apostate, who took the paper from the Inquisitor’s outstretched hand. Dorian felt himself start to sweat when he noted Cole taking hold of his deadly assassin’s knives ever so slowly and quietly. It made him wonder how quickly he’d be able to get a spell conjured.</p><p>“I have spent a great deal of time in these forests,” Inquisitor Lavellan began as Solas unfolded the paper and met the man’s eyes. “I have found many things. Studied many more. Developed my own theories, tested them, proved them out or refuted them. I have read, I have listened to Keeper tales, I have learned everything I can from many sources, and even more from you. The ruins scattered about Thedas contain truths that no scholars wish to know because it would destroy an entire peoples’ belief system. It would be harmful to Tevinter, to Ferelden, to all of Thedas’s races and lands. I learned, over the course of several decades, more than anyone ever knew.”</p><p>Solas raised a single eyebrow but didn’t interrupt.</p><p>“It was as I rested against a statue of a wolf in one partially hidden cavern with a newly-lit torch in my hand some two years before the conclave that I stumbled upon a carving at its base, hidden by untamed grasses and rubble from the naked eye. It was a sort of defacing, in a way, from someone who had once cowered there in fear, or perhaps had knelt in prayer for salvation from those who enslaved them.”</p><p>Solas nearly smiled when the Inquisitor revealed, “’Twas the countenance of an elf with a smooth bald head. Words were written in the ancient language beneath the drawing.” The Inquisitor met Solas’s eyes. “Words that gave the Wolf a true name. I’ve known who you were since I first encountered you after returning from the Fade, Fen’Harel.”</p><p>Dorian raised any eyebrow. “Care to fill the rest of us in?”</p><p>Cole had disappeared again.</p><p>“Walk with me?” the Inquisitor asked.</p><p>Dorian followed him along the path as the Inquisitor began to explain what Solas was, while at that very moment Solas was unfolding the letter he’d been handed.</p><p>
  <em> Dearest Solas,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I shan’t pray to you or give you accolades. You neither seek them nor deserve them, for you have never been a god, only one whose magicks rivaled those of all original elves. You protected, you judged, and I gather all ruled in harmony until something happened. Something I fear may have been cataclysmic on a scale I cannot comprehend.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I learned of you and recognized you from that carving. You’ll know the one I mean for I suspect it was carved in your presence by one who knew you well. My research and study of all that I have found is in a locked drawer in my quarters. The key is beneath one of the wine barrels in the wine closet there. You are welcome to it all, for I will have you know what I know, though I’m certain it’s far from the whole truth.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ar lasa mala revas. Know that your secret is safe with me, which should be obvious given the year that has passed without any acknowledgement from me privately or publicly about this matter. I only decided to bring it to light now with both you and Dorian because the mark upon my hand grows more painful and stays active for longer. I have begun to fear for my longevity, which is why Dorian must be made aware. I fear to learn the role you have played in all of this and why you are really with the Inquisition. I shall next be informing my advisors of all of this so preparations can be made, if required.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I have no magicks other than those which make me who I am and those which have been granted as capabilities of the mark. I have loved you and our conversations, and I respect you. But please don’t do whatever it is you are here to do, for as a result of all my research combined with our numerous conversations, I find myself fearful of the consequences to the ones I love who do not have ears shaped like ours.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I think you had a hand in what destroyed those ruins I grew to know so well. I think you have something to do with the orb you are so keen to have recovered from Corypheus, and I fear greatly what you intend to do with it once retrieved. Please just consider that no matter what you do, it will not bring back the world you destroyed. These innocents do not deserve to die for the horrors you alone wrought upon the world.</em>
</p><p><em>I feel it, Fen’Harel. Somehow, deep within my bones, I know. My people have had you wrong all along. And yet what you wish to do to us all, if my own conclusions are to be trusted, is not to help your people return. It is to ease the guilt you feel for having destroyed them so very long ago. At </em>our<em> expense.</em></p><p>
  <em>vir sulahn'nehn<br/>
vir dirthera<br/>
vir samahl la numin<br/>
vir lath sa'vunin</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dareth shiral,<br/>
Ghilani</em>
</p><p>Solas looked up as Dorian, Cole and the Inquisitor emerged from the forest.</p><p>“Ir abelas,” Solas said in his softest voice, with a nod as he folded the letter and secured it to his person.</p><p>The Inquisitor nodded once in return as he said, "Banal nadas."</p><p>Wished he could hug his friend. Knew he couldn’t, for now all had changed. Might never see him again. Missed him so much already in spite of everything, that his chest hurt with every breath. Solas turned around and disappeared in the opposite direction, walking at a quick pace. The Inquisitor felt his heart pull, allowed himself a moment of being unsure, of not knowing whether the words he’d labored over for more than two months would be enough.</p><p>“Will he return?” Cole asked.</p><p>“This is why you wept, wasn’t it?” Dorian asked. “Not really the trees and animals.”</p><p>“I don’t know, Cole. And Dorian, partially both.” The Inquisitor sighed. “I only hope my words have given him something to think about. I saw it in the Fade. Heard it from a spirit. Remembered it in a dream. A dream that came after I dreamt in the Fade with Solas himself. I suspect he knows it. That he must now think about why he introduced me to something that I believe deep down he was well aware would reveal his true nature before we managed to fix everything wrong in Thedas.”</p><p>Cole frowned. “There have been many times when I have almost found what you told us just now, but he always shut me down.”</p><p>“Now we know why,” Dorian grumbled.</p><p>The Inquisitor sighed again, sadly, shaking his head. “So much death and destruction and he wishes to bring more.”</p><p>“Yes. Against us,” Dorian reminded him. “Assuming what you’ve explained comes to pass, of course.”</p><p>“And that, in my mind, is truly the reason the Maker sent me to the Inquisition,” The Inquisitor finally revealed. “Of course I must fix the rifts and help the people of Thedas as long as this mark will hold. But more importantly I have to unite all countries in Thedas and protect them from a man I grew to love deeply whose motives are, at the very least, questionable.”</p><p>“If it helps,” Cole offered, the first time he’d really spoken, “Solas loves you deeply, too. He considers you his only true non-spirit friend.”</p><p>“Well,” Dorian stated as the trio started walking down the path toward their next task, “I truly hope that love and friendship really can change the fortunes of man.”</p><p>“I believe,” Cole offered cryptically, “that it already has.”</p><p>“May the Dread Wolf <em>not</em> take any of us,” Lavellan breathed.</p><p>After several long minutes of crushed stone crunching beneath their feet being the only sound they heard, Dorian asked, “By the way, Inquisitor, what’s a lath’ha?”</p><p>“Wife.”</p><p>“And what’s the word for husband?” Dorian asked with only the slightest of tease in his voice.</p><p>The Inquisitor smiled at sparkling eyes. “Lath’da.”</p><p>“Always a lath’ha, never a lath’da,” Dorian whined, then huffed out a laugh.</p><p>The Inquisitor snickered.</p><p>Even Cole, once he’d figured it out, blasted out an uncharacteristic snort.</p><p>The Dread Wolf had gone.</p><p>For now.</p><p>What that meant for the world, remained to be seen.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>End Note: The lines in the Inquisitor’s letter written in elven are from Leliana’s Song in DAO.<br/>Elven:<br/>vir sulahn'nehn<br/>vir dirthera<br/>vir samahl la numin<br/>vir 'lath sa'vunin'</p><p>Translation:<br/>we sing, rejoice<br/>we tell the tales<br/>we laugh and cry<br/>we love one more day</p><p>Ar lasa mala revas = I give you your freedom</p><p>Banal nadas = Nothing is inevitable</p><p>Ir abelas = I am sorry</p></blockquote></div></div>
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